When I first started to collect antique dolls in the 1950's my mentor, in addition to my own mother who always loved dolls, was Stella Hart in Cleburne TX. Mrs. Hart collected and sold fine dolls and taught me so much. In her 80's then, she said she did not collect bisque dolls, as they did not seem old to her. Those were what she knew as a child. She had two beautiful old cotton dresses, both brown prints which I wished were in tatters so we could dress dolls in the fabric. Not so, they were nearly perfect. Years later while living in FT Worth, I saw the two dresses in the possession of Elizabeth Patton, another doll collector who was cutting them and I was able to buy small amounts of each. I used the prettier one on a doll and parted with her over time. But here in 2021 is a piece of the other dress still in my sewing stash and now right for an Izannah dress! It is the brown print pictured and will have an apron of an early red orange. I may bind the little apron with a bias of an early very dark brown print.
The dress below was finished for Charity yesterday. It is sewn by my tube dress method found else where on my blog. http://edythoneill.blogspot.com/search?q=tube+dress A beautiful piece of orange red calico was inspiration for this one. The wonderful old print was never used, it was only a small piece given to me years ago by Connecticut dealers Barbara and Don Ladd. The apron is just laid on her lap until I extend the sashes a bit to tie in back.
